The Titans Go Tech
by Lihau
Summary: The original Titans decide to connect to the internet. One shot.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything in this story except for this idea. Never have, never will. (sniffle)

**The Titans Go Tech**

Robin, Kid Flash, Speedy, and Aqualad sat around the Titans' Lair, bored. Wonder Girl had contacted them and claimed to have something important to tell them, so they were now more-or-less patiently awaiting her arrival.

Robin was sitting cross-legged on the floor, poring over a thick book which lay in front of him. The print was tiny and, as the cover was on the ground, it was impossible to see the title. Knowing the Batman's junior partner, this volume was more than likely short on illustrations and was entitled something akin to War and Peace or The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Application. What is ethnopharmacology, you ask? I have no idea, but it sounds like something the Dark Knight would have on his book list.

Kid Flash was seated rather comfortably on a folding chair and held in his left hand a bag of potato chips. The snack was partially crushed from when he'd inadvertently sat down on the bag, but since the chips still tasted like sour cream and cheddar, he didn't particularly mind the potato chip dust on his lap. He stood up, still crunching contentedly, and looked over Robin's shoulder at the fat book. Not seeing anything of interest in its pages, the speedster returned to his seat, leaving nothing but a few crumbs on the book as evidence of his expedition.

Speedy watched as Robin swatted away the crumbs in annoyance. He rolled his eyes for lack of anything better to do and folded his arms tightly over his chest, slouching further down in his chair. Boredom was driving him to desperate measures, so he picked up his bow, leaning against the arm of his seat, and smiled slightly evilly. Drawing an arrow out of his quiver, he pointed the weapon at Aqualad, the only standing Titan, and who had his back toward the archer and was staring at a map on the wall. The Green Arrow's sidekick took his aim and fired, making the suction-cup-tipped arrow thwack onto the wall just above Aqualad's head.

Aqualad yelped and stumbled back, falling down. This attracted the attention of both Robin and Kid Flash, who stopped their previous activities and stared at him. Kid Flash began snickering while Speedy gave a smug smirk. Robin raised his eyebrows curiously and watched as Aqualad plucked the arrow off the wall and walked toward Speedy. He held out the arrow with a cold, "I believe that this belongs to you." Speedy chuckled diabolically and reached for the arrow but, before he could grasp it, the normally placid Atlantean pushed the suction cup onto the archer's forehead. The Boy Wonder suppressed a grin, Kid Flash laughed even louder, and Speedy fumed silently as Aqualad turned away.

"Good, you're here!" The four boys looked toward the entrance, where Wonder Girl had just shown up. She stopped mid-step and gazed questioningly at the arrow suction-cupped on Speedy's forehead. Speedy pulled it off and gave her a "you-don't-want-to-know-and-you'd-better-not-ask" look. "Um… anyway, I was just thinking. I've been noticing that we've been getting less and less mail asking questions and so forth. Yesterday I think I figured out why." The Amazon paused. "Any guesses?"

Silence ensued for several seconds before Kid Flash suggested sheepishly, "There's a pen and paper shortage on the east coast?" Several snickers answered him.

"No! It's that, these days, the average youth doesn't want to write a letter! They use things called… called… e-mail! And… um… instant messaging! Chat rooms!" She hesitated dramatically before concluding, "The Titans need to get a… a… website!"

"Say, that's not a bad idea," Robin nodded. "E-mail is faster and more efficient." He added to the others, "And with a website, the server sometimes gives you a corresponding e-mail address. We should do that." Speedy and Kid Flash agreed eagerly and began discussing what exactly they could, should, and would do with their new webpage. Wonder Girl tried to get as involved as possible, but got a little lost among their internet-related conversation.

Aqualad listened and once in a while would blink, staring blankly at them. He finally cleared his throat quietly to get their attention. "Uh… what are e-mail and instant messaging and chat rooms and websites?" The two red-heads gaped at him, and the Atlantean blushed in embarrassment.

Wonder Girl smiled at him. "That's alright. I hardly know what they are, either. Robin, can you explain?"

Robin opened his mouth, but Speedy interrupted him before he could begin. "Wait a minute, Wonder Doll, why ask Short Pants? The only website _he_ probably knows is Wikipedia! Why not ask someone who actually _uses_ IM and stuff? Like me. I mean, if you want to know about—"

"E-mail," Robin cut him off with a glare, "stands for 'electronic mail'." He went on to explain the basics of the internet, amid constant scowls from Speedy. "Does that clear things up a little?" he finished. Wonder Girl and Aqualad nodded. "Alright, then, let's get started."

-

"Whatcha doing?"

"Typing up the code for our homepage."

"…I hope you understand what you're typing more than I do…"

"I know what I'm doing."

"Looks like my algebra homework—look at all those 'greater than' and 'less than' and 'equals' signs!"

"No math involved here."

"Sounds like my kinda job. Can I try?"

Robin, fingers still flying over the keyboard, glanced up at Kid Flash. "Do you know html?"

"Uh… no?"

"Right. Give me a sec and I'll let you type a little something about yourself."

"Cool!"

"Alright." Robin stood up and let Kid Flash take his chair in front of the laptop. "Go ahead."

Kid Flash began typing furiously, but stopped a few seconds later, reread what he'd typed, and shook his head. He selected all of the text and hit backspace before, out of habit, saving the document.

Robin stared in shock at the now-blank page, clean of his hard work, and then calmed down when he remembered that he could always just undo the deletion. Before doing so, however, he said sarcastically, "Why didn't you hit 'Control' plus 'W' while you were at it?" The speedster, out of pure curiosity, pressed down the two keys the Boy Wonder had mentioned. "No!" The document disappeared and the desktop background was now being displayed. Looking crushed, Robin sank to the ground. "All my coding… gone!"

Meanwhile, Kid Flash was trying to figure out what had happened. "I guess pressing 'Control' and 'W' closes the window, huh? Heheh. Heh… heh…." Robin glared at him.

"You destroyed my coding."

"Uh… you _did_ say to hit those keys…"

"Sarcasm. You _destroyed_ my coding."

"Um, Robin… Rob… Robbie? Ol' buddy, ol' pal, ol' friend o' mine? It was an accident you know…"

"You _destroyed_ my _coding_."

"Yes-but-it-was-an-accident-honest-to-goodness-it-really-was-I-didn't-mean-to-kill-the-document-I-didn't-know-what-I-was-doing-you-know-all-I-do-on-the-computer-is-play-games-an'-I'm-pretty-good-at-it-but-that's-not-the-point-the-point-is-it-was-an-accident-the-point-is-the-point-is—"

"The point _is_ that you better not fall asleep tonight because otherwise I'll murder you!"

Kid Flash put his superspeed to use and didn't look back.

-

As someone crept up behind him, Robin snapped, "Put one finger on this keyboard and you're toast!"

"Whoa, Bird Boy, what's your problem? I just wanted to see what the page looks like so far… no need to get _nasty_ about it."

"Speedy? Sorry, I thought you were Kid Flash."

"Oh. Yeah, Twinkletoes _did_ mention something about killing your code…"

"Mm-hm. So now there's not much of a page to see of yet. In a few minutes I should have some of the graphics Wonder Girl and Aqualad helped make back up again."

"Good." Speedy stared at the text. "What'd you write about yours truly?"

"Nothing."

"NOTHING?!"

"Ow, my ears!" Robin complained. He scowled at Speedy and told him, "I'm letting everyone write about themselves."

"Oh. Well. That explains it." Reaching his right hand over Robin's left shoulder, he waved it around in front of the Gothamite's face and offered, "Wanna floppy disc? Kid Flop sent it over as a token of peace. I'd take the disc and ram it down his big mouth if I were you."

Robin took the disc and chuckled at the sheepishly grinning smiley-face KF had drawn onto the label. "I should've done this before," he chided himself. "It wouldn't've happened if I'd backed it up the first time." He inserted the disc and saved the coding he'd typed so far into it.

"Sooo, now that it's safely saved, howsabout you take a little break so I can set up the IM stuff?"

"That's not a bad idea… my eyes _could_ use a rest. Thanks." Robin got up and left at about the same time that Aqualad entered the room.

"What are you doing?" asked Aqualad, speaking to Speedy for the first time in several hours.

"I see you've finally finished with the silent treatment," Speedy greeted him. "Well, Gill Head, I'm about to set up our IM account."

"May I watch?"

"Sure," Speedy shrugged, so Aqualad pulled up a chair and sat down next to him, looking on curiously as Speedy logged onto the internet. He entered a website and was about to begin filling out the form with information about the account when he suddenly remembered something. "HEY, BIRD BOY!" Speedy yelled.

… "WHAT?!"

"DO WE HAVE A WEBSITE YET?!"

"YEAH, BUT THE ONLY THING ON IT IS A 'COMING SOON' BANNER!"

"OKAY!" Speedy glanced at Aqualad, who was rubbing his ears. "Well, what's the matter with you?"

"What?"

"I said, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?!"

"Oww…." Aqualad ducked his head down.

Speedy shrugged and filled out the form:

_Username: _TeenTitans

_Password: _TheBatmobile

_Re-enter password (case sensitive): _TheBatmobile

_E-mail: _TeenTitans(at)TT.jla

_Password hint (This will be used to recover your password if you forget it. Choose a question): "What was the make of your first car?": _Weird

_First name:_ Teen

_Surname:_ Titans

He hit the submit button.

_Sorry, that username has been taken. Click –here– to choose a new one._

"What?! How can someone already be using that name?" Speedy fumed. After grudgingly changing their username to 'TheTeenTitans', he scribbled the information onto a piece of notepaper and taped the note to the top of the screen so that his teammates could memorize it. He then announced to Aqualad, "That does it—we're getting a copyright!"

-

Later, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash were sitting at the laptop, putting the Titans' IM account to use. "So we just type and people will be able to see what we write?"

"Yeah," confirmed the speedster.

"Mm. What are you going to type?"

"Nothing," Robin's voice announced. The other two turned around.

"Nothing?" Kid Flash echoed.

"Nope. We have to get home; we'll do it tomorrow."

"Aww-but-we-were-just-getting-started-why-can't-we-do-it-for-just-a-coupla-minutes-please-please-let-us-just-five-minutes-four-minutes-three-minutes-two-minutes-one-minutes—"

"Try _zero_ minutes."

"But-why-please-let-us-you-go-ahead-we'll-leave-soon-I-promise!"

Robin shook his head and Wonder Girl left.

"You're-a-real-party-pooper-Robbie-why-didn't-you-let-us-why-didn't-you?"

"Because we're all going _home_. We'll do it _tomorrow_."

"Please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please—"

"Kid Flash," Robin said in a warning voice.

"But-this-is-so-exciting-at-least-it-was-until-you-came-in-here-why-why-why-didn't-you-let-us-it's-not-like-it'd-kill-you-an'-an'-it's-not-fair!"

"Stop acting like a little kid or I'll ground you!"

"Ha-ground-me-you-can't-ground-me-an'-I'm-not-either-acting-like-a-little-kid-an'-an' where'd the IM screen go?"

"I 'x'-ed out of it while you were yapping." Robin shut off the computer and started for the door.

"Hey-that-wasn't-nice-it-wasn't—you-come-back-here-I'm-not-finished-with-you!"

Robin continued on wordlessly.

"Robin-ROBIN-you-get-your-tail-feathers-over-here!"

"Good _night_, KF." Robin switched off the lights and exited.

"You-come—hey-it's-dark-in-here-who-turned-out-the-lights-Robin-when-I-get-my-hands-on-you-I'll-I'll—I'm not _finished_ with you! Get back over here! Ooooooh… wait'll I see him again…"

**The End**


End file.
